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East Indies
Geographic region of islands east of India and Mainland Southeast Asia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Indies" redirects here. For other uses, see Indies (disambiguation).
For other uses, see East Indies (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with East India.
The East Indies (or simply the Indies) is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies broadly refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around the Indian Ocean by Portuguese explorers, soon after the Cape Route was discovered. In a narrow sense, the term is used to refer to the Malay Archipelago, which today comprises the Philippine Archipelago, Indonesian Archipelago, Borneo, and New Guinea. Historically, the term was used in the Age of Discovery to refer to the coasts of the landmasses comprising the Indian subcontinent and the Indochinese Peninsula along with the Malay Archipelago.[1][2][3]
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East Indies
Countries sometimes included in West Indies